Is a Grand Unified Theory of physics possible? (Darwin, doom)

[Nick Soapdish]

I am very skeptical that there can be one.

Whether you believe in naturalistic evolution or creation, humans are made to adapt with our environment. We are very proficient at anticipating and predicting how nature behaves around us; this is key to our survival. Our spacial awareness and our capacity for reason has given us the adaptability to create the advanced science and technology we have today.

However, the microscopic world is not our environment. With quantum physics we seem to have hit a boundary of what we can decifer about nature. With uncertainty, non-locality and particle-wave duality, our concepts of space and logic are challenged. Is this because we are outside the comfort of the environment we are adapted to? What reason to we have to believe that we can peek through the curtain of quantum physics and have the logic, intuition and awareness to see how nature truly operates?

[Buttercup]

We need MrSpinkles for this thread. He'll have some fascinating answers for you.

[Terrywoodenpic]

I don't think a grand unified theory of Physics is likely to be possible.
We might get to a unified field theory.
Who knows what will be possible in the distant future.

[PureX]

Originally Posted by Terrywoodenpic

I don't think a grand unified theory of Physics is likely to be possible.
We might get to a unified field theory.
Who knows what will be possible in the distant future.

I agree. I expect there will always be another mystery, as each solution reveals another set of questions.

[Jayhawker Soule]

I am reminded of ...

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.

- Charles Darwin; Introduction to The Descent of Man (1871)

[Engyo]

I think that a truly unified theory would encompass more than physics. By limiting it to physics, I believe you doom it to impossibility. Unification would necessarily imply everything, no? Our understandings of the mind, life, and everything else would have to be included, or too much is left out and the theory will not conform completely enough to reality.

[Nick Soapdish]

Originally Posted by Buttercup

We need MrSpinkles for this thread. He'll have some fascinating answers for you.

I miss MrSpinkles... what ever happened to him?

[Comet]

Originally Posted by PureX

I agree. I expect there will always be another mystery, as each solution reveals another set of questions.

They say knowledge is like a balloon: the more you fill it, the more area the outside surface touches and the more questions there are. Knowledge and technology work in an expotential fashion!

I think that a truly unified theory would encompass more than physics. By limiting it to physics, I believe you doom it to impossibility. Unification would necessarily imply everything, no? Our understandings of the mind, life, and everything else would have to be included, or too much is left out and the theory will not conform completely enough to reality.

To be truly unfied, it must encompass more than physics indeed.

Back to the OP:

However, the microscopic world is not our environment.

No, it is our enviornment and we have learned to control much of it.

With quantum physics we seem to have hit a boundary of what we can decifer about nature. With uncertainty, non-locality and particle-wave duality, our concepts of space and logic are challenged. Is this because we are outside the comfort of the environment we are adapted to? What reason to we have to believe that we can peek through the curtain of quantum physics and have the logic, intuition and awareness to see how nature truly operates?

Our concepts of space and logic are challenged by even the non-quantum! Look at the theories of the big as well as the small. With that in mind, and believing ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.... I'd say that we could someday understand it all as one.

The problem is that we are a limited species. We live in our own little part of the universe, at our own wave-length, by our own sences, and are limited by it all. Yet, we do evolve and adapt as you have said.

I said that knowledge and technology work on an exponential level. 50 years ago, what did we know about the universe? 100 years ago? How far have we come in such things compared to the past 1,000 years.... the past 5,000? It takes but one break through to have the questions you ask now come about, it takes but one break through to have the next generation ask questions that even we could not ponder.

As for a unifying theory: I think too many put too much stock in one thing and not all. Yet, that is where new breakthroughs come from and lead to more knowledge in any area. When one looks at the "greater picture" of things..... it is possible, if we survive that long

[Comet]

and logic is of human nature.... it can fail us, perhaps that is the problem